


interlude 1.2

by pinkgrapefruit



Series: interlude [2]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 12:41:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18828871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkgrapefruit/pseuds/pinkgrapefruit
Summary: The five times they follow the rules, and the one time they break them.(or, five times brooke and vanjie are good, and one time neither of them care)





	interlude 1.2

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like i've been working on this for ages but it's the last of my backlogged fics so you'll get what you get after this. Thanks to the branjie discord for brainstorming with me and to Qtip and Meggie for reading it through to make sure i hadn't messed it up
> 
> This is a 5 time fic prompted by an anon on AQ and i hope you enjoy!

1.

_ [no teams. it just doesn’t end well.] _

  
  


They've strewn themselves over a couch (and each other) somewhere in between episodes three and four. It’s a weekend and to be honest they’re both a little giddy coming off the high of the TV challenge - each feeling that maybe Vanessa should have won but also knowing that there's still a tomorrow.

 

They might also be high on their new relationship (or whatever they're choosing to call it). It's cute and sweet and a nice distraction from everything going on in the competition just to slow down and cuddle for a bit. Vanjie's just repositioning his head when Brooke speaks and it sends low vibrations through him. "Nessa," he starts, quiet and slightly apprehensive. Vanessa props himself up on his elbow and turns a little. "Nessa, do you think we could have some rules?"

 

The other man hums and tilts his head, examining the thought before carefully replying, "Like what, boo?"  

 

This is Brookes calling. "Maybe easy things, like not too much on camera and nothing too explicit?"

 

Vanessa hums again in agreement. He scratches his stubble lightly. "So like, no teams and shit?" He muses. "We weren't bad yesterday, but I get ya." They kiss and it isn't discussed again.

 

In fact, they forget it was ever a conversation until Brooke wins the reading challenge in episode nine. He's assigning pairs and for a second Vanessa hopes it's him, wants it to be him so deeply that his face falls when he chooses Nina instead. And then he remembers the rule, his rule and knows that this was the way they planned it.

 

He can't stay mad at Brooke for long anyway.

  
  
  
  


2.

_ [gigs are professional. and also too dangerous.] _

 

They’re lucky they share management. They say it all the time because it’s the only way they’ve arranged to not end up booked at the same time. Where possible, Jason and Steve schedule the two in different states, time zones apart and yes, it hurts everytime Brooke waves his man onto a plane but the feeling of welcoming Vanessa back home (back to him) - it’s worth it. Going to bed knowing that when he wakes up, his man will have snuck into his bed and curled around him like a koala, their own personal Noah's Ark at their feet - that's happiness.

From episode three, they got calls from everywhere, begging them to co-host gigs or do shows together but it was never going to happen. They’re both volatile with tequila and  _ god knows _ gay bars have enough of it.

 

Vanjie does shows everywhere and it takes very little to get him to say things he shouldn't - to spill little nibbles that could turn into a whole lot if you look at them the right way, connect the dots in the right order. Brooke would like to say he's different, likes the idea that he's the sane one - ice queen, impermeable. This is incorrect. He drinks tequila fast and hard, lets it burn on the way down only hoping it won't burn later in a bathroom that isn't her own. She's eight deep at Roscoes when it really starts going. Everything Vanessa has said has been, while true, very Vanessa - it's made just enough sense to get fan blogs whirring while no one can understand what he's on about. Brooke, on the other hand, reads like a morning paper. Easy and well-spoken and even when he's making jokes like 'I've been inside of her.'

 

It wasn't a joke and people have the common sense to know that only because it's Brooke that says it.

 

After that, Brooke decides to get sober. He reckons it's safer and he can't keep being this messy with a crown on the line. The next time he's at Roscoe's, he's not drinking and still makes jokes about all the things he probably shouldn't but they feel sincere. He realises why they can't do viewing parties together one week when they're finally allowed to be together while they watch. Vanessa is curled up in his lap, swathed in blankets and cradling a hot chocolate like it's the thing tethering him to reality. they don't really move throughout the episode, spend ad breaks nibbling on necks and whispering things they could easily say aloud in the comfort of their own homes but they feel safer to say in private. They couldn't do this in a bar - maybe the rule is a blessing in disguise.

  
  


3.

_ [competitors first. boyfriends second] _

 

It’s Brooke’s rule, of course it is. He’s the one who keeps watching Vanessa beat himself into the ground - taking every hit like it is breaking him. He can’t help but worry that if it comes down to it  - to the two of them - he might give up. He is worn down, Brooke can see the fear through his skin, hear torments when he lays his head on his chest. He is so tired. It would be so easy.

So he makes it a rule, when they are sinking into a couch in the workroom, the cameras rebooting for the  _ god-knows-how-many-th _ time - he makes sure he knows that he has to fight. It wouldn't be fair if he didn’t, he would feel like he wasn’t supposed to be there. And if he’s being a little more honest than usual, he kind of want to see what it would feel like. He wants to feel that adrenaline pumping through his veins, a chaser to the overwhelming fear of knowing that he could send him home.

 

Vanjie sits quietly as he talks, never arguing with what he says and when he is done, simply nods. He knows that Brooke is right - cannot argue with the overwhelming evidence that maybe he has a little less fire in him than he did at the beginning.

 

He follows the rule to the bitter end, fights like he doesn’t know that he will beat him if it comes down to it. When it does go there, he pushes forward until he hears the bitter echo of ‘sashay away’ and knows that he did everything he could. The rule may have been competition before boyfriends but he doesn't hold this against him. He can’t - it wouldn’t be fair.

 

It’s not fair, Brooke decides as he watches Vanessa walk away. It’s not fucking fair.

  
  


4.

_ [keep it for the camera.] _

 

They don’t choose this one but that doesn't mean they don’t follow it. A production assistant corners Brooke in his room the night after the Rusical. She - in more words - tells him that he needs to keep what he and Vanessa have for the cameras, don’t be too sweet when they can’t film, don’t hang out outside of cast times. He bites back a thousand remarks, swallowing down half-made jokes about zoo animals and fucking on camera. None of them are appropriate for the situation and he is sure they would all get him some sort of punishment. The PA looks almost sad, a little solemn and worse for wear. He understands she is just doing her job, can’t be mad at her but at the system for being so damn hard. He just wants Vanessa - why the fuck is it so difficult?

 

Brooke wishes he was there when they told him, can picture the crinkle of his eyes, the fire in his belly that they will have heard before they saw. He’s not comparing Vanjie to a dragon - no ma’am, but had he seen smoke down the corridor, he wouldn't have been surprised.

 

Just because they follow the rule, doesn't mean they don’t push it, too. They count their small victories like kids count pennies: the more they have, the closer they are to a bigger prize.

 

So what if they talk more than they kiss in the vans? The journeys are long enough for a little bit of both, and their castmates are glad to hear a little less smacking on the daily commute. They bond in a way that isn’t just skin on skin, warmth gliding between them like bonfire toffee and daisies - it brings them closer together as they intertwine fingers and rest heads on top each other. Their hushed voices don’t carry far (or at least that's the excuse they make for being so damn close together when  _ ‘you’ve got four whole seats bitch.’ _ They talk between orange slices and hot coffee, over breakfast, lunch, and dinner when the cameras can’t roll and the PAs are off eating their own meals. They find ways to thread inside jokes through their sentences (something the editors hate later on because  _ ‘it’s fucking hard to edit when you have no idea what they’re on about’ _ ). Maybe they do it as a quiet rebellion, if the moments are uneditable, they won’t have so much airtime - they can be their own people before they are clumped as one - if they do, no one confirms it.

 

5.

_ [emojis only] _

 

It’s a month after filming finishes and they decide that words are too obvious. They can be bent, misconstrued and they know they’ve been given explicit instructions not to give anything away but  _ god, _ sometimes they want to show a little online affection. He’s sick of hiding it already, dreading when the show comes around because the NDA already says to let things play out onscreen first and he’s way too all over his man.

 

They pick out some emojis, safe ones that do not allude to anything in particular but also do. The orange heart is Vanessa’s personal favourite, reminiscent of episode four of Untucked. It was his favourite, not only because _ god _ , Brooke looked good in that outfit but because even though he was scared, it reaffirmed that he had everything he needed to be fantastic. He comments the heart and hopes it conveys everything he needs Brooke to hear, everything he can’t type because ‘ _ god babe if you thirst on all of my posts this is going to become way too obvious,’ _ and ‘remember the NDA’. Those words will be the death of him and he knows it.

 

The knife and the coffin are probably sexual, Brooke decides as he types them on a picture of Vanjie -  he needs way too many words to describe it with eloquence and only two to describe with accuracy. The words are ‘fuck me’ and whilst it he can’t say it, he’s grateful that he can impart that sentiment on the confusing comment section of Instagram. He likes the detective too; it feels like an ‘I see you’ even when their mouths are gagged and their hands are tied and they’ve got a million other things to think about.

 

The emojis are all fun and games, neither here nor there and nobody really minds. And that’s okay.

  
  


*

 

1.

_ [don’t fall in love. showmances don’t last] _

 

Looking back, they’re unsure when they broke this rule. They made it as a joke, a little drunk on prison sangria and competition stress. It’s a joke, they told themselves whenever their hearts fluttered a little too hard. It’s just a joke, Brooke tells himself when he watches Vanjie lipsync for the second time. It’s a joke Vanessa reminds himself when he jokes about putting a ring on it, two days before they can all go home. Maybe they convince themselves it’s true. They stay under the radar and try to pretend that the roses growing in their veins isn't love, it’s lust, longing, a symptom of a bigger problem. Brooke goes back to Nashville, and Vanessa goes back to LA and it’s fine. ‘Cause it ain’t love.

 

It takes two days. He sits at home for two days feeling hollow, empty. He lays alone in bed at night but this time he feels it, deep in his bones like a heaviness. They feel under pressure like they will shatter and he wants to scream because this-this is why you don’t fall in love. He’s felt it before and he’ll feel it again as it burns its way through his insides, a trail of fire left in the mussed bed sheets he’d barely laid in. His head thuds back onto the pillow, and he lets the deeply unfamiliar scent of his detergent consume him. It feels like home and like foreign ground, simultaneously and all at once.

 

He caves, calls him with the number Brooke had said to call as soon as he got home. He hopes he won’t be mad.

 

*

 

It takes two days. Brooke flies to Nashville and greets his apartment like an old friend. It was never very decorated - he’d always insisted he wouldn’t have to stay for too long - but compared to a hotel room, it is bustling with life. He spends the first day drowning his sorrows with cheap liquor and his cats, lets Celine Dion fix whatever Drag Race broke. He’s not sure how he can still listen to her but somehow she reminds him of Vanessa and he can’t be mad at that. After two days he wakes up sober and lonely and his head is pounding like a heartbeat so very far away. It’s a joke and he feels like a clown because how did he fall in love like that - with him?

 

Vanessa calls him and it’s 3 a.m. and he’s never pressed accept so fucking quickly in his life.

 

*

 

“Um, hey baby, it’s Vanessa - no wait it’s Jose.”

“Hey.”

 

_ I miss you. _

_ I love you. _

_ Move to Nashville. _

  
  


“How are you?”

 

_ I love you. _

_ Move to Los Angeles. _

_ This is bullshit. _

 

“I’ve missed hearing your voice.”

“I know, bitch.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm genuinely really proud of this, I hope you enjoyed it! if you've got any feedback/ constructive criticism you can catch me in the comments here or over on tumblr @pink-grapefruit-cafe. I love you all and your feedback truly motivates me to keep writing xx


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